Weapon Attack Level
The Hero and the Dog are both able to gain weapon attack experience to increase their weapon skill level. For the Hero, each weapon has its own amount of experience (excluding Bazooka). This means that getting to the maximum weapon level of 3 for all weapons (12 total) is a lengthy grind. In a normal playthrough of the game, the player will usually only have a few weapons at level 3. For the Dog this is different (as the Dog has no actual weapons), by simply counting as one 'weapon', throughout the entire game, independant of switching between Dog forms or time-regions. Although the Dog usually kills enemies less frequently than the Hero, this does mean that it is a lot quicker to max out the Dog's weapon level. The Weapon Skill menu can be viewed and has 3 pages the player can scroll through. Each weapon type has its own page, displaying the weapons the player possesses of that type, displaying the current weapon experience and description of the selected weapon. The attack cooldown, attack animation, hit range/area of effect and damage changes depending on which attack level the weapon is used at (and also which weapon type is used). If a weapon is level 2 or 3, it is still possible to use that weapon for level 1 attacks. The game also allows a weapon level of 0 to be selected in the character menu, but it has no actual difference with level 1 attacks. Gaining Weapon Skill Experience Each weapon type and Dog skill level requires 256 experience in order to advance to the next level, resulting in a total of 512 required exp. When reaching level 3, the Weapon Skill menu will state: Neutron Blade 3:0 Levelling up from 1 to 2 usually requires only half the kills as going from 2 to 3. This is because enemies grant 4 exp at level 1 weapon skill. At level 2, all enemies grant 2 exp instead. This means that the player will usually need to kill 192 enemies to reach a weapon skill level of 3. Note that bosses and mini-bosses give as much as regular enemies. Since gaining weapon experience at level 2 always results in 2 per kill, it is recommended that the player grinds on low hit point enemies that they can kill in one level 0 blow without waiting to recharge their energy %, like the Mosquito and most early Prehistoria enemies such as the Wimpy Flower, Skelesnail and Maggots. An ideal location to grind is the Eastern Jungle, allowing to be entirely cleared by the player in a few minutes per location entry. The player can expect to go from level 1 to level 3 in about half an hour of gametime. Attack Cooldown & Energy Restoring energy % (visible in the energy bar at the bottom) is equal in speed for both characters. Speed of recharging cannot be increased in any way. It can be slowed down however, when charging up a weapon past level 2 and then beginning to run. The player will still charge up, but very slowly. The energy restore rate is 10 points per frame (SoE is 50 FPS for Pal), capping at 1024 and thus not contributing to the above 100% values. After charging past level 1, this rate becomes 7 points per frame. Running while charging is 3 points per frame, when above 100% and 5 points when below 100%. This means, approximately, that charging from 0 → 1 takes: 1.7 seconds. 0 → 2 takes: 4.15 seconds. 0 → 3 takes: 6.6 seconds. It is possible to launch an attack, even at 0%. This will result in a very minor damage value however (usually 0 or 1). This is useful in some situations, where the player wants to kill an enemy that has little hit points (remaining), like a Mosquito. It is also useful if the player wants to briefly stun an enemy, to lock it in place or to stop it from attacking. Attack Animation The Hero will perform a different animation for each weapon type. The Bonecrusher has a different animation than the other weapons of the Sword type. Lastly, the Bazooka also has a unique animation. Attack animation and duration table: Placeholder - Research is needed The Dog has a slightly different animation for each of its forms. All dog forms have a melee attack for each weapon level, except the Omnitopia Toaster form, which has ranged attacks for each weapon level. Attack animation and duration table: Placeholder - Research is needed Hit Range & Area of Effect Placeholder - Research is needed Damage Calculation A level 0 attack will deal damage based on how much energy % the player has, nearing 100% damage the closer the energy % gets to 100. A level 1 attack deals 100% damage. A level 2 attack deals 200% damage and a level 3 attack deals 400% damage. This applies to all weapon types and also for the Dog. After this calculation, a final random number between 3/4 and 5/4 of the damage is picked. For more info about this, go here.